Jumping the Shark
Beach Before you is nearly a mile and a half of golden sand warmed relentlessly by the light of Ikeopo until it is nearly scalding hot. The blue sea laps at the shore, providing a welcome relief from the heat for those who need it. Deckchairs and sunshades line the beach haphazardly, somewhat in contrast to the neatly ordered city behind. Day or night, people crowd the beach either sun bathing, swimming or just plain relaxing, given the genetic engineering in the background of many Sivadians, they often have trim and fit bodies to show off, and the swimsuits and beachwear here reflects that. Tourists from other worlds are easy to pick out, they're the ones wearing more than a swimsuit here. Seagulls fight for space overhead with the robot patrol drones that maintian law and order, although the usual bands of Specialists are noticeably absent here. ---- About 200 yards offshore, a hoveryacht whirs to a stop, churning surf with its airjets as it slowly settles pontoons into the water. DelMarenno sticks the tail of his board in the sand and looks out on the water, using one hand against his forehead to shield his eyes from the glare at sundown. He frowns irritably at the boat and mutters: "Bugger ... looks like perfect breakers there." The hoveryacht, bearing the name Santiago, drops an anchor from an angled bulkhead in the hull. The V-shaped weight spirals toward the water, attached to the boat by a thick, heavy chain that uncoils as the anchor tumbles, splashes into the water and then vanishes beneath the surf. DelMarenno's eyebrows rise and draw together. "They can't drop anchor there," he notes, turning to another surfer a few yards away. "Can they?" A paparazzi with a handheld holocamera wanders up next to DelMarenno. He glances out at the yacht. Smirks. "I guess you can if you're a celebrity." DelMarenno is wearing boardshorts; the Councillor for Grand Enaj is presently leaning against a surfboard stuck in the sand and looking out at a yacht which has just dropped anchor. Eyes turning to the paparazzi, he inquires drolly: "Oh really ... who's boat would that be, then?" His head turns again to the yacht about 200 yards offshore. "That TV show guy," the paparazzi replies, checking the charge on his holocamera. "Symazko. You ever watch 'The Islanders?' My wife loves it. Can't get enough of it." He shrugs. "I don't get it. But whatever. Anyway, yeah." He points to the yacht. "That's Symazko's boat." Mika heads over from the general direction of Schooner's, her stride long and lazy, her hands in her pockets. She toys with her dog tags as she walks along, black leather shoes kicking up sand with each step. DelMarenno sniffs with disdain, looking down his nose at the boat. If it is at all possible to look haughty while wearing swimming trunks and leaning on a surfboard, DelMarenno pulls it off. "I've heard the name," he says crisply, eyes narrowing very slightly. Another hatch opens in the side of the hoveryacht, two hundred yards offshore. A conveying arm, articulated and agile, juts outward from the inner cavity of the boat, its claws clutching what appears to be a streamlined water scooter. DelMarenno is wearing boardshorts, leaning on a surfboard and watching the happenings offshore. A quick look turns into an ever quicker double-take: Mika's head snaps once, then twice, a startled expression locked on her considerably dressed-down boss. She hazards a few steps in his direction, as if he might suddenly mutate and kill her, then quickens her pace only the slightest bit as she approaches. "Mr... uh, Mr. DelMarenno? Issat you...?" A figure emerges on the upper hull of the hoveryacht - looks like a man, about six feet tall with a slight paunch around his belly. He's wearing board shorts and a white muscle T-shirt. He starts climbing down the port hull using handholds. Before long, he catches up with the water scooter as it is lowered into the water, still grasped by the automated claw next to a narrow ledge. He steps onto the ledge, then climbs onto the scooter and presses a button. The articulated arm releases the scooter and lifts its claws about twenty feet, freeing the smaller vehicle for travel. Torr strides onto the beach, a dark expression on his features. He attempts his best to stay on the boardwalk that runs a good portion of the beach. He frowns against the setting sun, though probably is not happy about something else. He heads in the general direction of Mika. DelMarenno turns slightly to regard Mika and nods. "Of course it's me," he replies, a touch scornfully. From the look of his bare shoulders he's been out on the water quite a lot, or at least paid enough to look like it. He turns back to watch the man with a frown. "It's entirely his decision to park a yacht two hundred yards offshore and cavort about on a waterscooter," Brian continues with mild irritability, "but it so happens he's picked the perfect spot to paddle out, and I wish he'd move." His eyes follow the man, now in confusion. The paparazzi furrows his brow, then hefts his holocamera to start filming the man on the scooter. Mika still can't seem to swallow the image of her boss in anything but a thousand-dollar business suit. It's destroyed a crucial something in her fragile little world. She wrinkles her brow, mouth working, eyes going everywhere, finally following Brian's gaze offshore. She manages to choke out a question. "Th' 'ell's goin' on?" With a sputtering grumble, the water scooter comes to life. The man at the controls thumps the accelerator forward and arcs away from the boat, directing his vehicle toward shore. Ahead of him and to his left, he spies a dark dorsal fin slicing through the water. The fin angles toward him. The scooter rider jerks the steering yoke to the left and gooses the accelerator. The fin pursues him. DelMarenno quirks an ironic smile. "What was it that he was accused of doing with his series?" Brian asks slowly, turning to the paparazzi. "Some sort of industry term. Means he ran out of talent?" Torr finally catches up to Mika, his expression still dark. "Fuck. You were right about this place. Paradise, yeah right. Shoulda warned me it was so damned warm." He regards DelMarenno with a slightly interested expression. "You're the boss, right?" DelMarenno sucks air through his teeth. "Language," he chides Torr, turning slightly. "And if by 'boss,' you mean CEO, chairman and majority shareholder of Ikeopo Trading and the SVD Hyperion, then yes." He turns his head to watch the fin following the man on the scooter. The scooter rider runs parallel to the fast-moving fin for about a hundred feet before he gets another idea. He yanks the yoke to the right, angling toward the creature now that a cresting wave is starting to rise between them. Apparently, he intends to ride up the back of the wave, take to the air, and outdistance the predator so he can make it safely to the beach. "Ah, my mistake," Torr replies, nodding his head in concession. "Mika already informed me that you disapprove of smoking, so I am planning on cutting down on that. Good to meet you." He turns, watching the antics of the waterscooter. DelMarenno frowns, tilts his head, then turns to Mika. "You have a commlink?" he asks. 'Call SHIELD ... perhaps they can get a boat out to help him, or something." It's Mika's turn to don an ironic grin; a gesture she directs at Torr. It's a wordless comment on the nature of Brian DelMarenno that speaks of a bemused and resigned acceptance. Glancing back at her boss, she nods vaguely. "Yeah. Can't let th' fella get eaten, I guess." Mika speaks into her commlink. Torr smirks. A hand dips toward his pocket, though when DelMarenno directs Mika to use her comm, Torr reverses the gesture. He shifts, looking a little warm. After a moment, he shrugs his leather jacket off, hanging it over his arm. The scooter climbs the back of the wave as it rises, and the rider can clearly be heard yelling: "WAAAAAHOOOOOOOO!" as the vehicle lofts over the crest and arches through the air, toward the beach. He's safely past the dorsal fin within a few seconds. But as he starts to descend, still about one hundred yards out near a coral reef, a pair of jet black barbed tentacles wicker outward from the bottom of the wave as it begins to foam and collapse toward shore. The first tentacle snaps itself around the suddenly writhing hulk of a 20-foot-long black shark, which is lifted from the water and flung blithely toward the hoveryacht, clunking against the upper hull before it falls, thrashing, back into the sea. The second tentacle punches through the scooter rider's back, bursting a bloody hole through his muscle-shirt. He's yanked, shrieking, off the scooter, which keeps going through its arc while the rider is pulled back - oh-so-rapidly - into the roiling tumult of the fallen wave. A smear of blood is all that remains as evidence of the rider, save for the scooter itself, which putters on the shore and then goes silent. DelMarenno's jaw drops and he takes a step back, his surfboard falling next to him. "I'm, ah -" he begins, swallowing heavily as he pales. Swallowing again, he bends on shaky legs to collect his board. "I don't think I'll be surfing today." "I toldja th' weather 'ere was tropical, dammit," Mika starts to scold Torr as she puts her commlink away, but is interrupted by her own shriek. The engineer dances a few involuntary steps backward, her eyes the size of dinner plates. "Damn. Er, Darn," is all Torr has to say as the man watches the scene unfold. He steps back from the water calmly, his demenor unshaken. "Looks like his career just took a turn for the worse. I think I'm going to cross the beaches of Sivad off my list of vacation destinations. Not like I planned on being here anyway." DelMarenno coughs into his hand and swallows a third time as he collects his board and starts to walk away. "Well," he says. "I needed to be at a meeting in five minutes anyway." "What?! Yer just-- I mean-- y'guys!" Mika explodes into a fit of broken sentences as she spins around to look between Del's departing form and the nonchalant Torr. "Need t'-- I mean, an' 'ospital! Cops, someone, gotta call-- blinkin'-- Jeezus H. Christ, yer just gonna LEAVE?!" "Well, didn't you just call SHIELD?" Torr shrugs. "They're on their way I'm sure. No way in hell you'll get me to swim in there after that little display. I assume SHIELD has the capability to deal with this." DelMarenno nods. "You just called SHIELD," DelMarenno agrees to Torr. "I suppose we'll have to wait until they arrive, but I have no designs on getting any closer to the water just now." Three SHIELD patrol hoverboats whir along the coast, approaching the site of the incident. "But-- well-- I--" Mika starts, shaking her head and lifting one hand to her brow. She stares out at the water, her gears still thrown into reverse: she's steadily moving backward. "CRAP, I need a drink," she finally growls, her face contorting into a scowl. "Yeah, they'll want statements from us," Torr replies, "We're witnesses after all. Just stay outta the water." Torr turns to regard DelMarenno. "I'd like to speak with you about a business matter, though I could wait for a better time?" His gaze once again wanders out to sea, watching the SHIELD boats. "Alcohol is not always the answer," Brian replies to Mika candidly, and nods to Torr. "Indeed," he says. "There's a meeting I must go to that I am already late for." He checks his watch and pauses where he is, frowning as he watches the patrol boats impatiently. As the SHIELD boats get within about one hundred feet of the reef, three barbed black tentacles lash out of the water, punching through the hulls of the hoverboats and hurling the vehicles through the air. Two are flung out to sea. A third is rapidly whooshing through the air toward the group standing on the beach. "Y'guys make me sick," is all Mika has to say on the matter. Her arms drop limply to her sides. "Well enough," Torr responds. "I'll speak with you.." his sentence draws to a close as he sees the action over the reef, his calm expression falling slightly limp. "Damn.." he mutters, then snaps to attention. "Lets move out of the way!" "We'll discuss that later. RUN!" Brian offers, dropping his board in the sand and sprinting towards the road as quickly as he can. Mika's eyes widen, but she says nothing, turning to bolt away from certain doom with her co-workers. The third SHIELD boat slams its damaged hull into the sand just behind Mika as she flees. It bounces in the air, arcing over Mika, casting her in its shadow, and then comes down with a sliding thud in front of DelMarenno. Torr runs with his shipmates, coming to a quick, sandshifting halt as the boat leaps over them, and thuds down before them. "Think we should look for survivors?" He muses this for a moment, and then moves forward toward the boat. "Yeah." He answers his own question, moving toward the door to the craft. DelMarenno skids on the balls of his feet in the sand, losing his balance and falling ungracefully on his rear as the boat lands mere feet in front of his face. Resting on his haunches and hands, he exhales heavily. "Bloody hell," he mutters. "Of all the days to go to the beach!" He rests there for a moment as if afraid something else will happen as soon as he moves. The boat's occupant - or at least his left hand - slaps against Torr's back as it drops from the sky. The amputated appendage thumps on the beach, landing at Mika's feet. Mika screams and drops to the sand, covering her head frantically as her knees connect with the ground. A few long moments pass, and she doesn't look up until she's absolutely sure the death is not waiting in the wings. She blinks, unmoving, at Torr, her hands still grasping her ears. "Screw you," she says flatly. "I'm gettin' th' 'ell outta 'ere." "Merciful Christ," Brian breathes as he scrambles to his feet, leaving his crushed surfboard behind him and moving briskly but shakily towards the boardwalk. "Huh," Torr regards the hand with mild disgust. "That probably is not a good sign." He then turns his attention to Mika, frowning slightly. "Two minutes ago you're the one who -didn't- want to leave." He shrugs, turning from her and climbing into the boat. There's not much left inside the ruined hull of the boat, except for a brilliant starburst splash of crimson - blood from someone killed within. "That was 'fore I nearly got creamed by a goddamned boat!" Mika shouts, clambering to her feet. A tapestry of profanities stream from her lips as she dusts the sand and debris from her clothes. After a brief survey of the wreck, Torr climbs out again. He chuckles at Mika, "Whoa, watch the language there." He smirks, shaking his head slightly as he looks at the wreckage. "Think you should call SHIELD again?" While the paparazzi guy is filming all this, a pair of Sivtek hoverorbs emerges over the dunes, broadcasting: "ALL CIVILIAN PERSONNEL - EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!" "These people *died* and you're *laughing*?" Brian exhales in dismay. He looks from the hoverorbs to Mika and Torr, then to the road, and says simply - "I'll be all too happy to comply." Still struggling to regain his composure, the businessman gives the boat wreckage a wide berth on his way out to the Boardwalk. "What, so they can come get their asses kicked again?" Mika snorts. The announcement earns a lopsided grin and not a whit of resistance. She raises her shoulders in compliance and quickly trots over to the boardwalk after Brian. Torr also moves away from the boat, his footprints red in the sand from the stain he must have stepped in. He winces slightly, stepping onto the main boardwalk, his boots caked with blood and sand. "Those things in the water. Can't be normal here, are they?" "No," DelMarenno breathes, "Definitely not normal." He reaches the relative safety of the boardwalk and kicks sand out of his sandals before ascending to the street. Mika looks back to Torr with a small shrug, then sets her jaw and surveys the chaos one last time before she, too, leaves the beach area. 1n